Day 7: Representations of race, class, and gender across media/visual literacy

Representations of race, class, and gender
- Examples:
  - Baseball film with native Taiwanese (showing them as poor) and Japanese
    - Real: Native Taiwanese were really poor, compared to Japanese who were rich
      - Taiwanese were second citizens
    - Representation
      - Training, equipment, uniforms, lack of money
      - Accurate representation? Hyperbole?
  - African American woman as a maid in a white man's house
  - Homeland -- American army against Middle East terrorist
  - Taiwanese TV shows (soap operas) -- main character is a boy (rich) and the girl (poor)
  - Advertisement -- robot ad
- Discuss: The Critical Media Project, Race and Ethnicity
  - View: Stuart Hall: Representation & the Media (5 min)
  - Visions of masculinity: Hidden Gender
  - Visions of femininity: Media Pressures
  - Visions of race: Stories of Race
- Find an example of an advertisement that plays on these gender roles and discuss how it could be created in a different manner
  - Example: Avengers Ad
  - Example: Men in Women's Roles

Men

Women

Muscular
Hair, Style
Dominating
Handsome

What this means:

Take charge
Strong/smart
Power/control

High heels
Acting cute (stupid, innocent)
Weak
Improve

What this means:

Objects
Unhealthy
Role of women in society

Visual literacy
- Defining visual literacy
  - The ability to read and write images
  - Thinking about accuracy and value
  - Understanding the role of images in a media saturated world
  - Sensory literacy that we must teach
  - 3 Revolutions: writing, printing press, digital image
  - 90% of images taken in by our eyes
  - Need to take time and pay attention: look, see, describe, analyze, interpret
  - "Try to paint the picture for yourself"
  - Grammar of looking: line, shape, color (hue, intensity, value), space, texture, form, time
  - Principles: emphasis, balance, harmony, variety, movement, proportion, rhythm, unity

Examining Infographics

Homework

Use Write Lab to post your rough draft by midnight tomorrow
Read: Doug Belshaw, The history of 'digital literacy'
We will watch together: Doug Belshaw: The essential elements of digital literacies (17 min)